Wednesday, June 01, 2005

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

In his Press Conference yesterday, did President Bush say:

"Detainees have been trained to disassemble. Disassemble is a word than means not to tell the truth."

That's what I heard--but then my ears may may be biased.
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

We are in the middle of a thunderstorm on the first day of the hurricane season. Last year's four big ones put everyone on edge and all kinds of preparations are being made that were never made before.

In Florida when it rains people act like people do in New York when there is an eight inch snowstorm. Dinner dates are cancelled, theater tickets are given to the maids and doormen, and every one stays inside.

Florida has rescinded (for a week) the sales tax on anything related to hurricanes, so this is a good time to buy plywood, batteries, and plastic sheeting. I must look at the list to see what else is on the tax free list. The state is advertising tax free sales so much that if I were a retailer I would leave everything at full price, which I am sure most retailers are doing.

Maria and I have half of the North Atlantic tuna catch cached in a closet here along with enough water to supply the most of the elephants at Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey.

Friday, May 20, 2005

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com


.S. Eliot (1888–1965). Prufrock and Other Observations. 1917.

4. Rhapsody on a Windy Night


TWELVE o’clock.

Along the reaches of the street

Held in a lunar synthesis,

Whispering lunar incantations

Dissolve the floors of memory
5
And all its clear relations

Its divisions and precisions,

Every street lamp that I pass

Beats like a fatalistic drum,

And through the spaces of the dark
10
Midnight shakes the memory

As a madman shakes a dead geranium.


Half-past one,

The street-lamp sputtered,

The street-lamp muttered,
15
The street-lamp said, “Regard that woman

Who hesitates toward you in the light of the door

Which opens on her like a grin.

You see the border of her dress

Is torn and stained with sand,
20
And you see the corner of her eye

Twists like a crooked pin.”


The memory throws up high and dry

A crowd of twisted things;

A twisted branch upon the beach
25
Eaten smooth, and polished

As if the world gave up

The secret of its skeleton,

Stiff and white.

A broken spring in a factory yard,
30
Rust that clings to the form that the strength has left

Hard and curled and ready to snap.


Half-past two,

The street-lamp said,

“Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter,
35
Slips out its tongue

And devours a morsel of rancid butter.”

So the hand of the child, automatic,

Slipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along the quay.

I could see nothing behind that child’s eye.
40
I have seen eyes in the street

Trying to peer through lighted shutters,

And a crab one afternoon in a pool,

An old crab with barnacles on his back,

Gripped the end of a stick which I held him.
45

Half-past three,

The lamp sputtered,

The lamp muttered in the dark.

The lamp hummed:

“Regard the moon,
50
La lune ne garde aucune rancune,

She winks a feeble eye,

She smiles into corners.

She smooths the hair of the grass.

The moon has lost her memory.
55
A washed-out smallpox cracks her face,

Her hand twists a paper rose,

That smells of dust and eau de Cologne,

She is alone

With all the old nocturnal smells
60
That cross and cross across her brain.”

The reminiscence comes

Of sunless dry geraniums

And dust in crevices,

Smells of chestnuts in the streets,
65
And female smells in shuttered rooms,

And cigarettes in corridors

And cocktail smells in bars.


The lamp said,

“Four o’clock,
70
Here is the number on the door.

Memory!

You have the key,

The little lamp spreads a ring on the stair.

Mount.
75
The bed is open; the tooth-brush hangs on the wall,

Put your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life.”


The last twist of the knife.
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

"people are dying because of a belief in an imaginary God.
Sam Harris.org
"
...The end of faith, religion, error--and the beginning of reason."

Stem cells; Blastocyst. 150 cells in a spheroid shape. The brain of a fly has 100,000 cells.
Sam Harris.org

You are trumping the needs of a little girl with diabetes, a total burn victim, a parkinsons victim, an alzheimer's patient when you deny the use of stem cells for reserach.
Sam harris.org

Dogma can be secular too--Stalinism, Naziism, Polpot, --political religions. When mass murder of innocent non-combatants occurs ask yourself what the motive might be. What do the murderers believe. Always it will preposterous.

SamHarris.org

We shouldn't close the door on belief until all the possibilities have been exhausted.

Thursday, May 19, 2005

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

To the Man on the Thirtieth Floor

Looking down
You think
Because you're so high up there
You don't stink
Like the rest of us.

mek

Our Founders Posted by Hello
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

peri·pe·teia

Pronunciation: "per-&-p&-'tE-&, -'tI-Function: nounEtymology: Greek, from peripiptein to fall around, change suddenly, from peri- + piptein to fall —more at FEATHER Date: 1591:

a sudden or unexpected reversal of circumstances or situation especially in a literary work
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

To choose doubt as a philosophy is akin to choosing immobility as a means of philosophy.

Life of Pi.
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

If a fool would throw a stone into water ten wise men could not take it out.

Yiddish saying.

Monday, May 16, 2005

Two quotes from Remi:

Remi's tooth fell out and it was in her hand. She asked me: "Grandpa, how much do you think the tooth fairy will leave under my pillow for this tooth? "

I asnwered: "About a dime."

Remi: "Did you say a diam-mond?"

________________________________________________

Later we were sitting on opposite ends of a sofa while pretending to have a conversation by cell phone. The conversation went on for some time and then she said, "Grandpa, hold on, I'm driving through a tunnel."

Wednesday, May 04, 2005

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

My used Solara convertible gets 19 miles per gallon. It uses regular gas --

Today I paid $2.25 per gallon -- the cheapest in this area.

At that rate I am getting 8.5 miles per dollar.

Walking becomes a more attractive alternative....

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

Q. from Buster to all and sundry:

Has every grandisonic, lexiphnanic phrasemonger found his way to Deadwood on Sunday nights? Have I been hornswoggled by its magniloquent, bedizened language? Am I getting cock sucking over-excited, overly enthusiastic, about this fucking program, or is it really approaching fucking Shakespearean heights?

Buster Stronghart

A: MG

Buster:

Can we not deduce that the Cocksucker who employs Shakespearean ways of speaking likely intends Shakespearean fucking themes? MG

A: SS

Dearest Buster:

It is laughable that you would think that you are too excited overly enthusiastic about Deadwood. I too find it the greatest.

The characters and their interplay cast i na forming American town is high art. The language and actionunconstrained by our present day experience is transporting .

K. and M. are repelled by it. I wont miss it if I can help it. I gladly pay the HBO bill -cheap at double the price. Each and everycharacter is complex and nuanced. I love it. I love it.

I even watchthe Tues nite repeat to fill in for bathroom abscence or frig visits. There is nothing on TV that even comes close. Epic.

ss

A: HR

I MUST AGREE WITH STEVE, DEADWOOD IS TRULY ONE OF THE MOST ORIGINAL TVDRAMAS TO EVER HIT THE AIRWAVES.I LOVE THE DIRTY FILTHY LOOK OF THE SHOW, AND OF COURSE THE WAY THEAVAILABLE EASY SEX WITH WHORES IS DEPICTED. NO DINNERS, NO FLOWERS;THE WAY GOD INTENDED IT TO BE. JUST LIFT UP YOUR SKIRTS. FORGET SHAKESPEARE....hr
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

Q. from Buster to all and sundry:

Has every grandisonic, lexiphnanic phrasemonger found his way to Deadwood on Sunday nights? Have I been hornswoggled by its magniloquent, bedizened language? Am I getting cock sucking over-excited, overly enthusiastic, about this fucking program, or is it really approaching fucking Shakespearean heights?

Buster Stronghart

A: MG

Buster:

Can we not deduce that the Cocksucker who employs Shakespearean ways of speaking likely intends Shakespearean fucking themes? MG

A: SS

Dearest Buster:

It is laughable that you would think that you are too excited overly enthusiastic about Deadwood. I too find it the greatest.

The characters and their interplay cast i na forming American town is high art. The language and actionunconstrained by our present day experience is transporting .

K. and M. are repelled by it. I wont miss it if I can help it. I gladly pay the HBO bill -cheap at double the price. Each and everycharacter is complex and nuanced. I love it. I love it.

I even watchthe Tues nite repeat to fill in for bathroom abscence or frig visits. There is nothing on TV that even comes close. Epic.

ss

A: HR

I MUST AGREE WITH STEVE, DEADWOOD IS TRULY ONE OF THE MOST ORIGINAL TVDRAMAS TO EVER HIT THE AIRWAVES.I LOVE THE DIRTY FILTHY LOOK OF THE SHOW, AND OF COURSE THE WAY THEAVAILABLE EASY SEX WITH WHORES IS DEPICTED. NO DINNERS, NO FLOWERS;THE WAY GOD INTENDED IT TO BE. JUST LIFT UP YOUR SKIRTS. FORGET SHAKESPEARE....hr
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

re: Deadwood

Am I getting over-excited, overly enthusiastic about this program, or is it really approaching Shakespearean heights?


BusterStronghart@Gmail.com


Fed Ex Letter received at the offices of a certain Attorney

Sirs:

A hypothetical question:

If an individual were making love with his mistress or wife and took an actual bite, a chunk of meat, out of her shoulder while possessed by passion, what crime would that be?

If, still in a state of passion he were actually to eat, that chunk of flesh, to swallow it in some fury of blinded love, would that act be cannibalism? If so, would it be a criminal act or would it be muted, mitigated, by the court's recognition of the uncontrollable power of their explosive passion?

Kindly let me know as soon as possible.

m

Monday, April 25, 2005

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

I know nothing about art: But like Justice Stewart I know it when I see it. Buying on line? I don't know. Even when you buy from the biggest auction houses in the world errors in attribution are made.

Myfriend Muggsy Feldstein, the plumber, attributed one of his daughter's finger paintings to George Braque and I paid him half a month's salary for it thinking that I was stealing it from him. Muggsy had the lastlaugh.

Now in re the feminized painting of St Michael and the Dragon. that you are thinking of purchasing...I can tell you that that painting the hero of a painting as anadolescent, androgynous figure was very popular in the fifteenth and sixteenth century.

Recently I saw a slide of Andrea Del Verrocchio's David, the one in Florence that was restored a few years ago. Magnifico!

David appears hand on hip, Goliath's sword in his other. He wears a short skirt, and the detail of his musculature is very soft. His hair is curled and comes down to his neck. His face is feminine,one hip is thrust to the side.

If a woman were in this pose you wouldsay she was flirting. He has a bonnet on his head, flowered, definitely a woman's head covering.

The Medici's contracted for the statue and placed in in a privatewalled garden so that the hoi polloi (Joel and me -- not you Lew & Stella) would not be shocked by it.
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

A few months ago I noticed that an index listing in the NY Public library was incorrect.
Man Ray was listed as "Ray, Man," as though his last name was Ray. ..

Man Ray created his name and considered it as one piece. MAN RAY.

The listing should be "Man Ray." I reported this to the NY Public Librarian at 42nd Street, and was told that it was not under their control, but rather under the control of the Library of Congress (LOC). I followed up with a letter to the "Name Authority File," of the LOC, in Washington, D.C.

Yesterday I received an email from them. “After a month of research we have discovered that you are correct. The change has been made. Thank you for your message."

This change will affect thousands of college and town libraries all of which use the LOC system as well as some commercial libraries.

I was elated! I finally made my mark.. Now on to the Dewey decimal system.